Living on Hope Street

by Demet Divaroren

  I closed my eyes, rubbed them till they burned.

  The air was cool outside. It made my nose run. I leaned against our front door, my legs stretched out in front of me. Some of the streetlights were out but there was enough light to make out the shape of the houses. Mum was snoring inside; Sam was curled up next to her. He’d run to her room screaming after a nightmare. He winced when he lay on his stomach. The bruise hurt him. The thought of Bad Bill made me squeeze the handle of the knife that lay in my lap. His turn would come.

  I zipped my jacket. The street was quiet for once; it would be easy to hear Dad’s footsteps if he decided to show. He kicked the ground when he walked to make his presence felt. That’s how he put it. ‘It’s all about presence, son. You walk hard and straight and no one can knock you down.’

  I wiped my nose on my sleeve. A light was on in Mrs Aslan’s house. She always left one on as if she was expecting someone. Hers was the only neat house on Hope Street. Sometimes kids in the neighbourhood sprayed NO in front of the H on the street sign, making us No Hopers, and that nutter Mr Bailey would crack the shits and complain to the council. He’d yell it out so everyone knew he had made the call, but the council stopped cleaning the sign after the fifth time. I didn’t blame them. We lived in the kind of street where ‘for sale’ boards said ‘Has potential. Knock down or redevelop.’ No luxury here. Ours was a secondhand street.

  Ms Christou always went on about the class system in English. ‘The only class you should buy into is the one you’re in right now,’ she said, waving a hand around. ‘This is where you shred the stereotype. This is where you become more.’ She was full of deep shit like that. Easy for her to say. She didn’t have to guard her house.

  It was past midnight. Maybe Dad wouldn’t show?

  The front door opened and I fell back.

  ‘Hey, night owl.’ Mum squeezed past me, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

  ‘You should be resting.’

  ‘You should be sleeping,’ she said, covering me with the blanket.

  ‘I’m not cold, Mum. You have it.’

  She sat next to me, held the blanket over my shoulder with her good hand. She put her chin on her knees and shivered.

  ‘You’re going to freeze, Mum. Go inside.’ I tried to give her the blanket but she shrugged it off.

  ‘He’s not coming, Kane.’

  ‘Not tonight.’

  ‘Twelve months at least.’ She let out a breath and mumbled something.

  It sounded like ‘if we’re lucky’ but it got muffled against her knees.

  Well, I wasn’t going to leave it to luck. I moved my feet to shake off the pins and needles.

  Time to get bigger, stronger, tougher.

  Time to get ready for when he came back.

  Dad’s not allowed here no more. He hurt us too much, Mum said. The policeman’s gonna keep him away. She didn’t say for how long but I counted one day already. I wrote it down in my book. Miss Bree said that forever happens when numbers run out. I wasn’t gonna stop counting till I was big and strong like Kane.

  Mum was lying on the couch and the pillow made her hair fluffy. I sat next to her but outside the blanket so she didn’t get cold.

  ‘Things are going to be great, baby.’ Mum kissed my hand. Her breath was stinky but I didn’t care. It was coz she was sick and swallowed lots of medicines. When she didn’t have bruises, Mum smelled like toothpaste and toast. Mum’s plaster was cold and hard and so tight it didn’t move when I poked it with my finger. ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘This thing? No. It tickles. It’s my shield like in the Ninja Turtles. See?’ But when she tried to move her arm, her face scrunched up. ‘It will take time for me to learn to use it,’ she said with a wink. ‘Like all good ninjas.’

  ‘Are you hungry, Mum?’

  ‘No, baby. Don’t worry about me.’ Her eyes went watery. ‘You are my little prince, you know that?’

  I nodded coz I knew but wished I was more brave.

  ‘Plus, I make the breakfast around here.’ She sat up.

  ‘No! I want to! Please, Mum, I know what will make you feel better!’

  ‘Do you now?’ She grinned, and looked like that cat in Alice in Wonderland.

  ‘It’s a surprise!’ I ran to the fridge to make honey milk drink.

  ‘Quickly though, I don’t want you running late for school.’ Mum’s favourite mug was the one with red love hearts. I got it from school for Mother’s Day. ‘Hey, reject, is that all you’re buying your mum?’ Bad Bill said at the stall. ‘Probably stealing it. Rejects can’t afford anything,’ Ted said. I kept my tears in and counted to ten but Mr Tekin heard and they got into trouble. Mum cried when I gave her the mug and she said it was the best present in the whole world. Just like me.

  The honey was nearly finished. I poked the jar with a spoon like Mum did to the butter when it got stuck to the edges. Kane left the sliced bread open in the fridge again. I tied it up so the bread wouldn’t go dry and make Mum mad. I looked for milk but found none. Only sauce and water on the side where milk usually was. My heart felt squishy and I closed the fridge.

  ‘Why the long face, baby?’ Mum was watching from the couch. ‘What you looking for?’

  ‘Nothing … um … I’m making toast!’

  ‘Mm, my favourite!’

  ‘With honey tea!’ Mum loved tea. I could make Mrs Aslan’s honey milk when it was payday and the fridge had lots of milk. Mum told Kane that it got hard to stretch the paycheque for two weeks, that money finished by week one. There was one teabag left in the jar.

  ‘Hey, bud.’ Kane came into the lounge room. ‘What’s cooking?’

  ‘There he is! My prince number two.’

  ‘Ease up, Mum.’ Kane’s hair was spiky; he did that when he wanted to look tough, he said.

  ‘Fine, you want to be a princess?’ She smiled at me and I laughed. Kane hated being teased.

  ‘Geez, you’re in a good mood. They must be good drugs you’re on.’

  She giggled. ‘They give me my super powers!’

  ‘Mum’s a ninja!’ I buttered toast for me and Mum and saved a slice for Kane.

  ‘I’ll make mine, bud.’

  I gave Mum tea and toast and ate mine next to her.

  ‘Where’s your tea?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t feel like any.’

  Mum’s smile went away and her eyes got wet. ‘Hmm. Well, they say tea is sweeter when it’s shared.’

  ‘Who said?’

  ‘Mrs Aslan, of course!’ She hugged me with one arm. ‘My beautiful boy,’ she whispered, ‘you have a gigantic heart.’

  ‘Looks like I’m sharing too.’ Kane sipped from Mum’s mug and made a loud slurping noise. ‘Slim pickings in the kitchen. I’ll buy stuff after school.’

  ‘Thanks, Kane. I’ll do a bigger shop when I’m back at work.’

  Kane’s mouth moved like he was gonna say something to Mum but then it shut when he looked at me.

  Mum gave him twenty dollars. ‘Buy bread, canned soup, baked beans and … let me see …’ She waved her hands at the fridge. ‘… yes, milk!’ She winked at me. ‘Don’t look at me like that, Sam. Super mums know everything.’

  Maybe Mum did have magic powers! I sipped the tea and it was warm and sweet coz of the honey.

  ‘Bud, hurry up and finish. I’m dropping you off to school.’

  ‘No!’

  Kane’s face went red.

  If Bad Bill saw Kane he’d think I dobbed and tease me more for being a scaredy cat.

  ‘I’m taking you, Sam.’

  ‘But why? You never take me.’ What if he was mean to Bad Bill and Ted and Jay?

  Mum’s eyes went from me to Kane. ‘Everything okay here?’

  ‘Yep,’ he said. ‘Let’s go, Sam.’

  Kane called me Sam when he was angry so I got the coins Mum gave me for lunch and put my bag on my back.

  ‘Make sure you keep the doors locked, Mum,’ Kane said.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ She
yawned. ‘We don’t have to worry anymore.’

  She snuggled under the blanket. Her eyes were half closed; she looked like a panda with her bruises.

  Angie curled on the couch, Sam’s kiss still warm on her cheek. She heard Kane walk past and open the front door.

  ‘Shh,’ Sam whispered, ‘Mum’s going to sleep.’

  ‘Hurry up and put your shoes on, bud.’

  ‘Let’s get another lock,’ Sam said, ‘one like the chain in Mrs Aslan’s house. Then Dad can’t ever come in!’

  ‘It’s alright, bud, Dad left his keys at home. Plus this has a double lock, it’s hard to break.’

  Their voices drifted towards Angie and balled inside her. Tears fell onto her pillow as they closed the door behind them. My brave boys, she thought. With a last tug of the doorknob, the boys walked down the driveway. Angie shook on the couch where Sam had tucked her in like a concerned parent. His eyes were too knowing for a boy. It made her heart ache but the pain wasn’t enough to ease her guilt. She’d failed her children.

  Pull yourself together, she thought. Be strong for the kids. ‘You not alone,’ Mrs Aslan said often, ‘I here, you boys here. You breathe when this bad feeling come, you strong woman, you not forget this.’

  Angie wiped at her tears and sat up. The room spun when she reached for the glass of water on the coffee table. The painkillers left a bitter trail on her tongue but it was the pink pill that numbed Angie’s thoughts. She cut the pill in half. She’d taken the recommended full dose at the hospital but it made her nauseous and fatigued. She couldn’t afford to be sick. She had to be present; she had to be alert for her boys. Their dirty clothes were waist-high in the laundry. The kitchen needed a clean, greasy plates were scattered on the bench top and food and sauce streaked the cupboard where Dean had hurled his dinner plate.

  Angie tried to get up but felt strapped to the couch. She lay her head back, massaged her temples. The infinity tattoo on her wrist looked like eyes up close. It had faded to a dull green. ‘Come on, Ange,’ Dean had said, ‘let’s do it! We only live and love once, hey?’ They were twenty-two, backpacking around Europe on their honeymoon. Back then, Dean’s blue eyes used to glow. He walked like the world was waiting for him and spread his infectious smile all over Europe.

  When they got back home, Dean started his mechanic apprenticeship and Angie studied nursing. They lived in a small flat. Every night they dreamed of going back, discovering Ireland, Greece, Istanbul. He’d caress her face, her tattoo, and she’d bury her lips in his neck and kiss the stubble under his chin. ‘When I’m old and my skin is loose,’ she’d said, holding up her wrist, ‘this tatt is going to match my saggy boobs!’ His laughter had rumbled through the flat. ‘Good thing our love isn’t made from skin,’ Dean said.

  When she fell pregnant with Kane a year later, they were scared, ecstatic, naive. Dean continued his apprenticeship. His job was pretty much guaranteed once he finished. Angie left her degree and completed a short course in community services and worked in aged care till Kane was born. They were knee-deep in debt and nappies, but they were happy. ‘He’s so small,’ Dean used to say, touching Kane with his fingertips. ‘I’m scared he’ll break.’

  But it was Dean who broke, piece by piece. When he lost his first job eight months later, he sobbed in her arms, shifting from pain to panic. ‘What happened?’ she’d asked. He stiffened. His fingers dug into her wrist and he pushed her away. ‘Whose side are you on?’ he said. The bruise had flowered instantly and so had his remorse. He’d kissed her wrist, apologised over and over while his tears fell onto her bruise. She bruised easily, she told herself. Her skin was too sensitive. His hands had never been rough before. This was a one-off. How could she blame the hands that had built a cot for Kane, that massaged the tension out of her shoulders, that made her soup and wiped her runny nose when she was sick?

  Angie forced herself up. Her legs wobbled as she walked to the kitchen to wet a sponge. She wiped the mash and sauce off the cupboard doors with her right hand but they had scabbed on the surface. She wiped harder till water dribbled down her wrist but the stains clung on. She sat down, leaned her drowsy head against the doors.

  Kane was six the first time Angie left Dean. They’d moved to Hope Street and Dean had lost yet another job at a garage. She snuck out when he was wheezing on the floor in a pool of alcohol and glass. He’d smashed the beer bottle against the bench top in a rage, slipped and hit his head on the floor. He was quiet for minutes and she stood frozen, unsure if he was dead until his snores roared through his body. His face was ragged, puffy from the alcohol. If it wasn’t for the infinity tattoo she wouldn’t recognise him. How long before his aim changed and he hurled the bottle at her head? Or worse, tried to hurt Kane? She couldn’t risk it. She rushed to Kane’s room and rescued him from under his bed. She drove to her friend Becky’s house, wishing that her mum was still alive. Her mum’s loss was a wound that never healed.

  ‘Ange?’ Becky said, opening her arms. ‘What’s happened?’ Kane was fast asleep and she pulled him out of Angie’s arms and helped them inside. She put Kane down next to her two kids and returned with cups of tea and Tim Tams. ‘Peter’s away at a conference,’ she said. ‘He’s back in two days. Maybe he can have a word with Dean …’

  It took one day for the alcohol to wear off and for Dean to find her. He kissed her feet, stammering apologies. ‘I’m a bloody idiot, love! I didn’t know what I was doing! I’d never hurt you, ever! You know that!’

  ‘I can’t, Dean. No more. You get too crazy when you drink. The yelling and carrying on … it’s not healthy for Kane. For any of us.’

  ‘Promise I’m gonna change, no more piss, I swear!’

  ‘I can’t.’

  His face twitched. ‘I’m starting AA. I swear to you on my life.’ He showed her a piece of paper as confirmation. ‘Just give me a chance. Everyone deserves a second chance. We’re infinity, remember?’

  But infinity was the sober Dean with the laughing eyes. ‘Please go. I need time to think.’

  He left, wiping his tears with the sleeve of his jumper. He returned that night; he rapped on Becky’s window so hard it cracked. ‘Please, Ange,’ he screamed, ‘I can’t live without you.’

  ‘If you don’t leave now, Dean,’ Becky said, ‘I’m calling the police.’

  ‘Keep your nose out of this, Beck, it’s none of your business.’

  ‘Like hell it’s not! I’m dialling right now.’

  ‘Just try it, you bitch!’ Dean hammered his fist on the door. ‘I’ve done nothing!’

  Becky’s youngest daughter sobbed behind her mother and Angie was flooded with guilt. What right did she have to bring fear and pain upon this child? Upon anyone?

  Dean stalked the porch like a crazed animal. He put a fist through the cracked window and shards of glass shimmered on the lounge room floor. ‘Mummy!’ Becky’s youngest screamed as piss dribbled down her legs.

  ‘Oh my god,’ Angie stammered, horrified. ‘I’m so sorry, Beck.’

  Becky held her trembling daughter, her eyes wet. ‘I’m the one that’s sorry, Ange, I really am. I can’t do this. You have to go. I have to think about my kids. I’m calling the police. He’s out of control.’

  ‘No, please don’t call the police, it’ll make things worse. I’ll leave. I’m so sorry.’ Angie went home with Dean, Kane moulded to her body. Dean cried at home, his relief pouring out of him. He started AA and soon the old Dean was back. Life stabilised. He practised his AA steps daily. ‘I’ve been powerless over alcohol but all that’s changing. That’s the first step, you know, to admit it. This one bloke has been sober for five years. That’s gonna be me.’ But each sober day brought a fear that congealed inside him. ‘You won’t leave, will you? Ange, you can see how much I’m changing. How I’m trying.’

  ‘I know, Dean,’ she’d say, ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ but she had an emergency bag packed and ready as the pamphlet had advised. She hid it in the backyard shed just in case.

&nbs
p; A year later, it wasn’t the bottle but her face that he squashed against the bench top. AA had worn off and his breath was bitter. ‘Don’t you ever try to leave again, you hear me?’ It was the first time he’d come after her and she fought him, scratched his face to try and get away. She managed to push Dean until he staggered back. ‘This is your fault for leaving,’ he said. ‘You drive me crazy! Can’t you see?’ He hugged and kissed her and they both cried in bed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Angie thought of the bag in the shed. The car keys hanging by the door. There was a shelter in the south east that helped women and children. His snores interrupted her thoughts and she waited another half-hour before she took off with Kane.

  She drove to a police station. ‘Help me, please,’ she pleaded, Kane half asleep in her arms. ‘My husband’s going to kill me. He’s going to kill my son.’

  The constable was middle-aged and had a bulging belly. ‘Has he done anything to harm you?’

  Angie touched her cheek. It was red but hadn’t bruised. ‘He … ah …’ His frown made her feel foolish. As if a flush would be enough for this man to take her seriously. ‘He pushed my face against the bench top …’

  His eyes sagged as he shook his head. ‘My hands are tied. Unless he actually harms you we can’t help. I suggest you get an intervention order from the court.’

  The ground turned to jelly as she walked back to her car. Actually harms you. The words were like another presence in the car; breathing heavy down her neck. A squashed face wasn’t good enough; they wanted her to break.

  She drove to the shelter only to be turned back at the door. ‘I’m so sorry,’ the woman said, ‘we just don’t have the beds. Look, I shouldn’t be doing this, but you’re welcome to stay here tonight on the couch and we’ll help you find a place tomorrow. Is there a friend or family member that you can turn to?’

  ‘I have nowhere else to go,’ Angie said, as the woman led her into the lounge room. She sat on the couch, the noose tightening around her neck. What if he’d fractured her skull? What would happen to Kane? His tear-stained face glowed under the yellow globe that hung from the ceiling. The TV was on and a sitcom filled the room with laughter. A woman in a grey suit and pointy heels sat near the window, her red lipstick smudged. She had a briefcase that belonged in an office building but Angie recognised her glazed eyes. Children ran in and out chasing each other while Angie chased away the hopelessness that tied her feet. What was the point of getting an intervention order if she had no roof over her head? She sat in the lounge till the smell of toast filled the room.